Foreword

It is with great pleasure that we report here on the acquisitions in art and craft that have been completed in the financial year just ended. Across all the different strands of our work with museums, 65 works have been donated to 27 of our museum members, representing a tremendous achievement for all concerned.

The year just gone has been one of considerable change, with many new supporters becoming close to the organisation. Foremost has been the appointment of Christopher Jonas as Chair of Trustees, following the departure of our dear friend Mark Stephens. Christopher has joined us with a burst of energy, and we are delighted that he has attracted some equally dynamic individuals to join the Board in the past few months: Michael Bradley, Sabri Challah, Simon Davenport QC, and Valeria Napoleone are already making significant contributions and we look forward to working with them to meet the ambitions of the organisation.

This last year also saw the formation of an Acquisitions Advisory Committee, which now convenes three times a year to support the work of the curatorial team through their professional knowledge and expertise. We are extremely grateful to Brian Griffiths, Daniel Herrmann, Jennifer Higgie, Steven Bode and Tanya Harrod for so generously giving their time and invaluable advice.

We are also delighted to record here that a number of new museums have joined as Museum Members in the past few months: we are very happy to welcome the Museum of London, Government Art Collection, University of Salford, National Maritime Museum and the Royal Albert Memorial Museum Exeter, among others, to the Society.

The Annual Award 2014, which continues to be funded by the Sfumato Foundation, attracted a stellar list of proposals. The selection panel comprised writer Tom Morton, Helen Legg Director of Spike Island in Bristol, artist Eva Rothschild and Paul Bonaventura, Senior Research Fellow at the Ruskin School of Art in Oxford. Four proposals were shortlisted in July: Martin Boyce for the Whitworth in Manchester, Marvin Gaye Chetwynd for the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Becky Beasley for Leeds Art Gallery and Nathaniel Mellors for the Harris Museum and Art Gallery in Preston. At a hugely well-attended evening at the Barbican Centre in November, artist Martin Creed announced that the winner of the 2014 Annual Award was Nathaniel Mellors with the Harris Museum and Art Gallery. Mellors was an extremely popular winner and the new film commission will be his first work to enter a public collection in the UK. It will be presented in Preston in 2016. Elizabeth

Price, winner of the 2013 Annual Award will present her commission for Oxford’s Ashmolean Museum in 2016 too.

The year 2014 saw the completion of the purchase of Marvin Gaye Chetwynd’s performance work Home Made Tasers for the New Walk Museum and Art Gallery in Leicester, as well as a group of works by Mel Brimfield for the Harris Museum and Art Gallery Preston with the Peter Scott Gallery at Lancaster Institute for the Contemporary Arts. These purchases were the culmination of the Testing Media project that was run collaboratively with the Art Fund and designed to support the acquisition of works presenting particular challenges in relation to display and conservation.

The Collections Fund committee came together last summer to support a major co-acquisition for Brighton Museum & Art Gallery with Bristol Museum & Art Gallery. The two institutions had never collaborated before, so it was of particular interest as the impetus for a new partnership between two of our Museum Members. Having proposed the acquisition of a moving image work, several months of research led to the purchase of two important 16mm film works by Ben Rivers. Both works will be shown at the museums in the course of 2015.

The Omega Fund is the name of our re-launched acquisitions scheme for craft. It is named after the Omega Workshops that were established in 1913 by Roger Fry, one of the founders of the Contemporary Art Society, along with other members of the Bloomsbury Group. The private collectors who contribute to the Omega Fund allow us to significantly increase the ambition of our purchasing in this area. In 2014/15 19 works were purchased under this scheme, among them Paul Scott for Bury Art Museum, Miriam Hiller for Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery and Michael Eden for Tullie House Museum in Carlisle.

We are particularly indebted to Tanya Harrod for her guidance of this strand of purchasing. The Omega Workshops aimed to blur the boundaries between fine art and craft by producing and selling objects of art and furniture designed and produced by artists. Our Omega Fund has the ambition of supporting emerging makers rather than established ones, in the tradition of the early years of the Contemporary Art Society and Roger Fry’s pioneering spirit.

In the first year of the new four-year cycle of purchasing under the Fine Art Acquisitions Scheme we are delighted to have been able to complete the purchase of 20 works of art in 2014/15. This strand of activity also very importantly provides a degree of professional development and support to curators from our Member Museums in the form of a year-long research process leading to the final acquisition of a work. We are particularly delighted this year to have been able to acquire a work by Gustav Metzger for the Herbert Art Gallery & Museum in Coventry, a work by Alice Channer for Nottingham Castle Museum and Art Gallery and to secure the permanent acquisition of the Paul Morrison mural for the South London Gallery.

And finally, the year saw the successful donation of 17 works to Museum Members through our Gifts and Bequests Scheme. A major painting by constructivist artist Natalie Dower, originally made for the Countervail exhibition at the Mead Gallery in 1993, has been given to the permanent collection at Warwick University; an important work by the late Donald Rodney, who was born in Birmingham, has been donated to Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, establishing a valuable new relationship with the artist’s estate; and two works by Roger Hiorns were donated to Leeds Art Gallery and the Whitworth in Manchester.

The Consultancy team continues to go from strength to strength, making serious inroads into the London property developer market with new commissions for major projects including One Blackfriars for St George, and Angel Court and Television Centre with Stanhope Properties Plc. The year also saw the launch of a number of high-profile public art projects including Conrad Shawcross’s elegant Three Perpetual Chords for Dulwich Park and integrated architectural commissions at the Lyric Theatre Hammersmith by David Batchelor and Richard Wentworth. We continue our long-term relationships to support high quality collecting and commissioning at Pictet, Aspen, and the University of Cambridge among an impressive portfolio of clients. The year 2014 saw the innovation of an online commissioning award developed for Aspen, demonstrating how a sustained relationship over eight years has added depth and relevance to their corporate collecting. The year saw the Consultancy team consolidate the successes of the previous year and put in a solid financial performance that does much to support the overall charitable mission of the Society.

Coming at the very end of the financial year, the Gala Fundraiser 2015 took the theme of Kaleidoscope: Colour in Motion. The energetic and highly effective gala committee was co-chaired for a second year by Veronique Parke, who together with Linda Keyte oversaw a glittering and exceptionally well-attended event at Old Billingsgate on the 24th of March. The Honorary Patron of the event this year was rising star of London fashion, Roksanda Ilincic, who brought with her an additional element of glamour as well as very generously donating a lot to the auction. The Gala is a key element of our fundraising and enables us to continue to increase our ambition to place great works by living artists in museums across the country. That ten museums have joined as Museum Members in the past year is a testament to the continued importance of the Contemporary Art Society’s mission, and it is thanks to our many generous supporters that we continue to occupy a place very much at the heart of the British art world.

Christopher Jonas CBE, Chairman Caroline Douglas, Director